In this paper, I defend a pluralistic view of phenomenological method which will provide evidence for particular accounts of experience without relying exclusively on the reflective method or on intuition as a criterion for truth. To this end, I discuss the prospects for indirect phenomenology. I argue that phenomenology ought to be defined by its object of investigation, first-person experience, and not by any particular method of gaining access to this object of investigation. On this view, an integration of naturalized (...) phenomenology into the cognitive sciences is far more feasible than we might have expected. (shrink)

Most patients suffering from progressive dementia have thoughts, emotions, perspectives, and perceptions of a world of experience. Decisions about life‐sustaining treatment should incorporate a principled approach to evaluating what life is like for these patients.

Historians of Reformational philosophy often claim that Abraham Kuyper obtained the idea of sovereignty in its own sphere from Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer. But very little historical research has been done on Groen’s sources for and development of this idea. The first use of the Dutch phrase souvereiniteit in eigen sfeer is much earlier than previously thought; it was used in 1853 by J.I. Doedes, an associate of the “ethical theologian” Daniël Chantepie de la Saussaye. Groen became aware of the (...) ideas of Franz von Baader through journals founded by them, and by reading and corresponding with them and others, such as J.H. Gunning Jr. and Friedrich Fabri. Groen himself owned some of Baader’s books. He also relied strongly on the work of the jurist Friedrich Julius Stahl, who was 37 years younger than Baader but taught for a while at the same Munich university and shared Baader’s anti-revolutionary ideas. (shrink)

Approximately 800,000 human embryos are currently in cryostorage in the United States. The Catholic Church holds that in vitro fertilization and cryopreservation of human embryos are intrinsically evil. IVF continues to increase at a rate of approximately 9 percent per annum. Many Catholic couples have used IVF as a means to conceive a child. There are typically additional embryos that are cryopreserved for later use. Once a couple has reached the number of children they desire, they are faced with a (...) very difficult moral decision regarding the disposition of their remaining frozen embryos. The biological parents must choose one of four options. Three result in death of their frozen embryos. Only one can possibly result in life. The only moral option is embryo adoption, a life-giving choice that is strongly supported by Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 14.3 : 441–447. (shrink)

One of Daniel Dennett's most sophisticated arguments for his eliminativism about phenomenological properties centers around the color phi phenomenon. He attempts to show that there is no phenomenological fact of the matter concerning the phenomenon of apparent motion because it is impossible to decide between two competing explanations. I argue that the two explanations considered by Dennett are both based on the assumption that a realist account of the phenomenon must include a neat mapping between phenomenological time and objective time. (...) Since this assumption is false, Dennett's argument is unsuccessful. Like most eliminativist arguments, Dennett's arguments may indicate that the subjective character of experience is different from how it is often described, but this leaves plenty of room for alternative models of consciousness. (shrink)

According to Theodore Schick, Jr., Eugenie C. Scott’s endorsement of methodological naturalism---roughly, the view that science is limited by its methodology to be neutral vis-à-vis the supernatural---is misguided. He offers three arguments; I contend that none is successful.

This paper examines the relationship between North American beef consumption and deforestation in South and Central America. Some writers have argued that consumption of hamburgers in North America, particularly hamburgers consumed in fast food restaurants, contributes to the depletion of the rainforest in South and Central America. We survey the published policy literature on the causes of rainforest depletion in the region. We also review the published estimates of the rate and extent of clearing of rainforest that has occurred in (...) South and Central America since 1970. Finally, we review the data on beef imports and consumption in Canada and the United States in a effort to assess the importance of South and Central America as suppliers of beef to the North American market. We conclude that the relationship between beef consumption in North America should not be considered an important cause of forest depletion in South and Central America. Domestic policies and market forces in the countries where rainforests are located are the leading causes of rainforest depletion in this region. This lesson seems to have been lost on some popular and even some textbook writers on this subject. (shrink)

In this book, Francis Diebold and Glenn Rudebusch propose two extensions of the classic yield curve model of Nelson and Siegel that are both theoretically rigorous and empirically successful.

Genetic counselors are on the front lines of the genetic revolution, presented with tests of varying predictive values and reliability, unfair testing distribution mechanisms, tests for conditions where no treatment exists, and companies that oversell the usefulness of their tests to physicians and nurses. Many scholars, both genetic testing task forces as well as the newly formed National Bioethics Advisory Commission, have all noted that genetic counseling programs and services are critical for adequate genetic testing. At the same time, in (...) our own work at the University of Pennsylvania we have encountered many requests for new materials for training genetic counselors in ethics and providing ethics resources for genetic counseling. One of us has noted elsewhere that it is crucial that resources from the Human Genome Project, the Centers for Disease Control, and other public agencies be devoted to providing better resources for genetic counselors facing difficult ethical issues. Although the American Board of Genetic Counseling requires that training programs include some formal coursework in ethics, many wonder whether enough is being done to prepare genetic counselors for an ever-tougher job, and in particular there has been much concern expressed about whether is an outmoded ideal that hampers this profession as it attempts to grow and identify the value of its practice. On the basis of many comments to us by genetic counselors and on the basis of our review of the current literature, we hypothesized that accredited genetic counseling training programs are poised at the turn of the century to begin planning a new approach toteaching the philosophy of genetic counseling, one that integrates philosophical, theoretical, and ethical training throughout thecurriculum in genetic counseling. (shrink)

is the newest section of CambridgeQuarterly. Twice each year these pages will feature a colloquium on a breaking issue in bioethics.

In this paper, we suggest some of the dimensions of the problematic concept of Alzheimer Disease as a natural disease discerned by increasingly sophisticated medical scientific progress. Taking a page from Max Weber concerning unique events, we show some of the conceptual building blocks and social processes that have coalesced into the perception of certain phenomena as abnormalities that are seen as implicated in the development of a degenerative disease distinct from the process of normal, but variable, brain aging. We (...) note some of the decisions and social forces pushing for particular conceptualizations, interpretations, and reifications of brain alterations. In so doing, we suggest that the mystery of the "there" may not be much different from, and probably is, the mystery of the "everywhere". (shrink)

Why do so many of God’s followers seem to prefer their boxed-in religion over God? Listen to their rhetoric and you might wonder how a Supreme Being could be so narrow and small, so angry and unattractive. It’s time to start over with an honest conversation instead of a box. If God does exist, there should be some clear indications of his being. And if humans bear God’s image, as the Bible indicates, then we should be able to connect with (...) God on some level. This book is about God, not religion. It’s about questions more than watertight answers. It’s about the experience of God more than it is about incontrovertible evidence that he exists. God can’t be seen, but he can be found. And while he can’t be fully explained, he can be known and experienced. Religious boxes have a way of blinding us to spiritual reality. So this dialogue is all God, no box. Are you ready? (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 9, September 2019, Page 58-60.

Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes--formal, final, efficient and material--is famous. But Posterior Analytics B 11 lists "if certain things hold, it is necessary that this does" in place of a standard expression for the material cause. This cause has been dubbed the grounding cause. It has interested scholars since the Greek commentators, who simply assumed that Aristotle meant the material cause. This traditional thesis has been challenged by two views: first, that the grounding cause is a special type of (...) material cause ; second, that it is no material cause at all . ;I set out two arguments for the traditional thesis and consider nine objections to it. Since most of these objections, which constitute the support for the revisionist thesis, can be answered, I reject the revisionist thesis. But in my treatment of one objection it also becomes clear that the traditional thesis is mistaken. The grounding cause is a necessitating cause, yet in Physics B 9 Aristotle makes it clear that many material causes are not necessitating causes. Thus, some form of the modified traditional thesis is true. ;But which form? D. M. Balme suggests that Aristotle means to include only mathematical causes because hypothetical necessity covers all of the relation between matter and product in things which come to be. But Aristotle seems to accept necessitating material causes in several passages in the biological works. In other passages he seems to adopt the position Balme attributes to him. I argue that he does not actually adopt this position, and that he does accept simple necessity in some things which come to be. Thus, the grounding cause is a necessitating material cause, and such causes are found not only in mathematics, but also among things which come to be. (shrink)

In 1957, Edgar Lobel published an Oxyrhynchus papyrus containing anonymous commentaries to poems of Alcman which has not ceased to fascinate philologists and historians of ancient philosophy.

Matthew D. Eddy and David Knight’s new edition of William Paley’s Natural Theology deserves to become the standard scholarly edition of what is a historically, theologically, and philosophically important work, despite a certain neglect of philosophical issues on the part of the editors.

Whether upheld as heroic or reviled as terrorism, people have been willing to lay down their lives for the sake of their groups throughout history. Why? Previous theories of extreme self-sacrifice have highlighted a range of seemingly disparate factors, such as collective identity, outgroup hostility, and kin psychology. In this paper, I attempt to integrate many of these factors into a single overarching theory based on several decades of collaborative research with a range of special populations, from tribes in Papua (...) New Guinea to Libyan insurgents and from Muslim fundamentalists in Indonesia to Brazilian football hooligans. These studies suggest that extreme self-sacrifice is motivated by identity fusion, a visceral sense of oneness with the group, resulting from intense collective experiences (e.g., painful rituals or the horrors of frontline combat) or from perceptions of shared biology. In ancient foraging societies, fusion would have enabled warlike bands to stand united despite strong temptations to scatter and flee. The fusion mechanism has often been exploited in cultural rituals, not only by tribal societies but also in specialized cells embedded in armies, cults, and terrorist organizations. With the rise of social complexity and the spread of states and empires, fusion has also been extended to much larger groups, including doctrinal religions, ethnicities, and ideological movements. Explaining extreme self-sacrifice is not only a scientific priority but also a practical challenge as we seek a collective response to suicide, terrorism, and other extreme expressions of outgroup hostility that continue to bedevil humanity today. (shrink)

THE ART OF CAUSAL CONJECTURE Glenn Shafer Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction........................................................................................ ...........1 1.1. Probability Trees..........................................................................................3 1.2. Many Observers, Many Stances, Many Natures..........................................8 1.3. Causal Relations as Relations in Nature’s Tree...........................................9 1.4. Evidence............................................................................................ ...........13 1.5. Measuring the Average Effect of a Cause....................................................17 1.6. Causal Diagrams..........................................................................................20 1.7. Humean Events............................................................................................23 1.8. Three Levels of Causal Language................................................................27 1.9. An Outline of the Book................................................................................27 Chapter 2. Event Trees............................................................................................... .....31 2.1. Situations and Events...................................................................................32 2.2. The Ordering of Situations and Moivrean Events.......................................35 2.3. Cuts................................................................................................ ..............39 2.4. Humean Events............................................................................................43 (...) 2.5. Moivrean Variables......................................................................................49 2.6. Humean Variables........................................................................................53 2.7. Event Trees for Stochastic Processes...........................................................54 2.8. Timing in Event Trees.................................................................................56 2.9. Intersecting Event Trees...............................................................................60 2.10. Notes on the Literature...............................................................................61 Chapter 3. Probability Trees...........................................................................................63 3.1. Some Types of Probability Trees.................................................................64 ii 3.2. Axioms for the Probabilities of Moivrean Events.......................................68 3.3. Zero Probabilities....................................................................................... ..70 3.4. A Sample-Space Analysis of the Event-Tree Axioms.................................72 3.5. Probabilities and Expected Values for Variables.........................................74 3.6. Martingales......................................................................................... .........79 3.7. The Expectation of a Variable in a Cut........................................................83 3.8. Conditional Expected Value and Conditional Expectation.........................87 Chapter 4. The Meaning of Probability...........................................................................91 4.1. The Interpretation of Expected Value..........................................................92 4.2. The Interpretation of Expectation................................................................95 4.3. The Long Run..............................................................................................98 4.4. Changes in Belief.........................................................................................101 4.5. The Empirical Validation of Probability......................................................106 4.6. The Diversity of Uses of Probability...........................................................108 4.7. Notes on the Literature.................................................................................110 Chapter 5. Independent Events.......................................................................................113 5.1. Independence........................................................................................ .......114 5.2. Weak Independence.....................................................................................118 5.3. The Principle of the Common Cause...........................................................121 5.4. Conditional Independence............................................................................128 5.5. Notes on the Literature.................................................................................133 Chapter 6. Events Tracking Events.................................................................................135 6.1. Tracking............................................................................................ ...........137 6.2. Tracking and Conditional Independence.....................................................142 6.3. Stochastic Subsequence...............................................................................143 6.4. Singular Diagrams for Stochastic Subsequence...........................................147 6.5. Conjunctive and Interactive Forks...............................................................149 Chapter 7. Events as Signs of Events..............................................................................153 iii 7.1. Sign................................................................................................ ..............154 7.2. Weak Sign................................................................................................ ....159 7.3. The Ethics of Causal Talk............................................................................160 7.4. Screening Off...............................................................................................16 2 Chapter 8. Independent Variables...................................................................................167 8.1. Unconditional Independence........................................................................170 8.2. Conditional Independence............................................................................175 8.3. Independence for Partitions.........................................................................177 8.4. Independence for Families of Variables......................................................182 8.5. Individual Properties of the Independence Relations...................................186 Chapter 9. Variables Tracking Variables........................................................................189 9.1. Tracking and Conditional Independence: A Summary...............................190 9.2. Strong Tracking............................................................................................ 192 9.3. Strong Tracking and Conditional Independence..........................................198 9.4. Stochastic Subsequence...............................................................................201 9.5. Functional Dependence................................................................................203 9.6. Tracking in Mean.........................................................................................204 9.7. Linear Tracking............................................................................................ 207 9.8. Tracking by Partitions..................................................................................210 9.9. Tracking by Families of Variables...............................................................212 Chapter 10. Variables as Signs of Variables...................................................................215 10.1. Sign................................................................................................ ............219 10.2. Linear Sign................................................................................................ .222 10.3. Scored Sign................................................................................................ 225 10.4. Families of Variables.................................................................................227 Chapter 11. AnTheory of Event Trees.............................................................229 11.1. Event Trees as Sets of Sets........................................................................230 11.2. Event Trees as Partially Ordered Sets........................................................232 iv 11.3. Regular Event Trees...................................................................................240 11.4. The Resolution of Moivrean Variables......................................................244 11.5. Humean Events and Variables...................................................................246 Chapter 12. Martingale Trees..........................................................................................247 12.1. Examples of Decision Trees......................................................................249 12.2. The Meaning of Probability in a Decision Tree.........................................253 12.3. Martingales......................................................................................... .......257 12.4. The Structure of Martingale Trees.............................................................261 12.5. Probability and Causality...........................................................................265 12.6. Lower and Upper Probability.....................................................................269 12.7. The Law of Large Numbers.......................................................................272 12.8. Notes on the Literature...............................................................................274 Chapter 13. Refining............................................................................................ ...........275 13.1. Examples of Refinement............................................................................277 13.2. A Constructive Definition of Finite Refinement.......................................281 13.3. Axioms for Refinement..............................................................................282 13.4. Lifting Moivrean Events and Variables.....................................................288 13.5. Refining Martingale Trees.........................................................................288 13.6. Grounding........................................................................................... .......294 Chapter 14. Principles of Causal Conjecture..................................................................299 14.1. The Diversity of Causal Explanation.........................................................302 14.2. The Mean Effect of the Happening of a Moivrean Event..........................305 14.3. The Effect of a Humean Variable..............................................................311 14.4. Attribution and Generality.........................................................................316 14.5. The Statistical Measurement of the Effect of a Cause...............................319 14.6. Measurement by Experiment.....................................................................320 14.7. Using Our Knowledge of How Things Work............................................322 v 14.8. Sampling Error...........................................................................................329 14.9. The Sampling Frame..................................................................................329 14.10. Notes on the Literature.............................................................................330 Chapter 15. Causal Models.............................................................................................3 31 15.1. The Causal Interpretation of Statistical Prediction....................................333 15.2. Generalizing to a Family of Exogenous Variables....................................337 15.3 Some Joint Causal Diagrams......................................................................339 15.4. Causal Path Diagrams................................................................................342 15.5. Causal Relevance Diagrams.......................................................................346 15.6. The Meaning of Latent Variables..............................................................352 15.7. Notes on the Literature...............................................................................357 Chapter 16. Representing Probability Trees...................................................................359 16.1. Three Graphical Representations...............................................................361 16.2. Skeletal Simplifications.............................................................................368 16.3. Martingale Trees in Type Theory...............................................................371 Appendix A. Huygens’s Probability Trees.....................................................................379 Huygens’s Manuscript in Translation..................................................................380 Appendix B. Some Elements of Graph Theory..............................................................385 B1. Undirected Graphs........................................................................................385 B2. Directed Graphs............................................................................................38 6 Appendix C. Some Elements of Order Theory...............................................................393 C1. Partial and Quasi Orderings.........................................................................393 C2. Singular and Joint Diagrams for Binary Relations.......................................394 C3. Lattices............................................................................................ .............395 C4. The Lattice of Partitions of a Set..................................................................396 Appendix D. The Sample-Space Framework for Probability.........................................399 D1. Probability Measures....................................................................................399 D2. Variables........................................................................................... ...........400 vi D3. Families of Variables...................................................................................401 D4. Expected Value............................................................................................402 D5. The Law of Large Numbers.........................................................................405 D6. Conditional Probability................................................................................406 D7. Conditional Expected Value........................................................................407 Appendix E. Prediction in Probability Spaces................................................................409 E1. Conditional Distribution...............................................................................411 E2. Regression on a Single Variable...................................................................412 E3. Regression on a Partition or a Family of Variables......................................415 E4. Linear Regression on a Single Variable.......................................................418 E5. Linear Regression on a Family of Variables................................................422 Appendix F. Sample-Space Concepts of Independence.................................................425 F1. Overview............................................................................................ ...........426 F2. Independence Proper.....................................................................................432 F3. Unpredictability in Mean..............................................................................434 F4. Simple Uncorrelatedness..............................................................................437 F5. Mixed Uncorrelatedness...............................................................................438 F6. Partial Uncorrelatedness...............................................................................440 F7. Independence for Partitions..........................................................................442 F8. Independence for Families of Variables.......................................................445 F9. The Basic Role of Uncorrelatedness.............................................................448 F10. Dawid’s Axioms.........................................................................................449 Appendix G. Prediction Diagrams..................................................................................453 G1. Path Diagrams............................................................................................ ..454 G2. Generalized Path Diagrams..........................................................................462 G3. Relevance Diagrams.....................................................................................466 G4. Bubbled Relevance Diagrams......................................................................475 Appendix H. Abstract Stochastic Processes...................................................................479 vii H1. Probability Conditionals and Probability Distributions...............................477 H2. Abstract Stochastic Processes......................................................................479 H3. Embedding Variables and Processes in a Sample Space.............................480 References.......................................................................................... ..............................491. (shrink)

This essay is about the ethical propriety and practical efficacy of a range of policy undertakings which, in the last twenty years, has come to be referred to as “affirmative action.” These policies have been contentious and problematic, and a variety of arguments have been advanced in their support. Here I try to close a gap, as I see it, in this “literature of justification” which has grown up around the practice of preferential treatment. My principal argument along these lines (...) is offered in the next section. I then consider how some forms of argument in support of preferential treatment, distinctly different from that offered here, not only fail to justify the practice but, even worse, work to undermine the basis for cooperation among different ethnic groups in the American democracy. Finally, I observe that as a practical matter the use of group preference can, under circumstances detailed in the sequel, produce results far different from the egalitarian objectives which most often motivate their adoption. It may seem fatuous in the extreme to raise as a serious matter, in the contemporary United States, the question “Why should we care about group inequality?” Is not the historical and moral imperative of such concern self-evident? Must not those who value the pursuit of justice be intensely concerned about economic disparities among groups of persons? The most obvious answer to the title question would seem, then, to be: “We should care because such inequality is the external manifestation of the oppression of individuals on the basis of their group identity.”. (shrink)

An account of the conflict between our positive and negative emotional relationships to the Earth and how they will be resolved for the Symbiocene, the next period in the history of the Earth.

Beller, Bender, and Medin question the necessity of including social anthropology within the cognitive sciences. We argue that there is great scope for fruitful rapprochement while agreeing that there are obstacles (even if we might wish to debate some of those specifically identified by Beller and colleagues). We frame the general problem differently, however: not in terms of the problem of reconciling disciplines and research cultures, but rather in terms of the prospects for collaborative deployment of expertise (methodological and theoretical) (...) in problem-driven research. For the purposes of illustration, our focus in this article is on the evolution of cooperation. (shrink)